#Open Letter to the Global JSConf Community

January 15, 2016

Following the incident that occurred earlier this week that involved the lead organizer of JSConf Beirut and members of the international JS community, we, members of the MENA-Devs group agreed on the need to publicly express our disagreement and disappointment in the behavior of the lead organizer throughout the past period.

MENA-Devs is an active, invitation based, online Slack community composed of 117 software developers (and growing) operating, mainly, from Lebanon. We are the single active, decentralized body, focused on the growth and well being of the Software Development industry in Beirut/Lebanon, with members coming from different technical and academic backgrounds, regions, ages, and genders.

We, jointly, express our discontent with the above-mentioned incident and appreciate the discretion in how JSConfEU chose to handle the situation, thus limiting exposure and negative consequences. However, we believe that, while necessary, the public tweet by JSConfEU warning speakers and attendees of attending JSConf Beirut might be interpreted very negatively by the global international community. More so, given the lack of details provided about the incident.

As such, members of the MENA-Devs community felt compelled to declare that the problems originating from the JSConf Beirut lead organizer are representative of himself only and do not represent the entire Lebanese Software Development community in any way, shape, or form. The organizing party in question has never been appointed to speak for, and on the behalf of the local community either privately or publicly.

Beirut has always been an open city, welcoming everyone, thriving on the diversity of its residents and more importantly its visitors. We believe it is a prime and convenient place for hosting international gatherings and we hope that this single and isolated instance will not jeopardize future attempts at organizing community driven events and conferences with an international audience.

Signed,

Bassem Dghaidy, @Link-

Dani Arnaout, @DaniArnaout

Abed Halawi, [@mulkave] (https://github.com/mulkave)

Jad Joubran, @jadjoubran

Jad Salhani, @jadsalhani

Mark Dagher, @markdagher

Abdallah Chamas, @abdallahchamas

Ayman Farhat, @aymanfarhat

Constantine Nicolaou, @cnicolaou

Joseph Saade, @jsaade

Layale Matta, @yalisme

Amine Atallah, @amineatallah

Mohammad Skafi, @arithma

Chafic Najjar, @chaficnajjar

Samuel Demirdjian, @enov

Elie Chidiac, @eliechidiac

Mahmoud Zalt, @Mahmoudz

Jad Bitar, @jadb